If you are installing a maintenance kit in a laserjet 4000 or 4050 series printer, or any printer for that matter, be VERY careful when installing the transfer rollers. The transfer roller sits in a collar on the left and right side underneath the toner cartridge. The collars are held in place with small plastic clips that hold the spring loaded collars in place. As these printers get older the plastic clips can get brittle and if you aren’t careful will break when you try to install or remove the transfer roller.

If you are not seeing any print defects, then you may opt to not replace the transfer roller, just replace the fuser and feed rollers. Many people assume that because the transfer roller looks worn out that it needs replacing. The transfer roller’s main function is to maintain a charge opposite that of the toner to attract toner to the paper from the drum in the toner cartridge. Hence the term transfer roller; it helps transfer toner onto paper.

If you break the clips holding the transfer roller in place you have a major repair ahead of you. The assembly you need to replace is called the paper feed guide assembly or sometimes called the transfer assembly. The printer needs to be disassembled to the point of splitting the top and bottom half of the printer, then the power supply can be removed, and if you have never done this you can figure several hours work. I would recommend that if you like the printer, buy one of our refurbished printers of the same model. It will save you a lot of aggravation. We have some customers that never do maintenance on these printers, they simply recycle their old one that needs maintenance and buy another refurbished printer from us because the cost is low enough that it is comparable with the cost of hiring someone to service the printer.